Monthly Archives: October, 2024
‘Data protection reforms envisaged under UK “use and access” bill’
Significant changes to data protection law have been proposed by the UK government, including to rules relevant to the use of AI systems in decision-making processes and to the use of data for the purposes of scientific research, as well as new rules aimed at liberalising data held by public sector organisations and businesses alike […]
‘Fraud, Delays, and Nonsense (Marks) … Oh My!’
Jeanne Fromer and Mark McKenna, ‘Amazon’s Quiet Overhaul of the Trademark System’, 113 California Law Review (forthcoming, 2025), available at SSRN (19 June 2024). ‘Yes! that’s it! that’s it!’ Those were my words when I first saw the title of Jeanne Fromer and Mark McKenna’s paper, ‘Amazon’s Quiet Overhaul of the Trademark System’. I was […]
Wayne Barnes, ‘Shifting Towards Boilerplate Regulation’
ABSTRACT Consumer assent to standard form contracts has been creating cognitive dissonance among contracts scholars for a century. Businesses impose standard forms on consumers, who never read the terms. But consumers would not understand them if they did. And they don’t have the bargaining power to change them anyway – the terms are famously ‘take […]
‘The Calculus of Christianity’
I teach in the School of Law and Justice here, and that for a number of years I have been teaching the subject of Torts (civil liability). I am also a Christian, and in teaching about the tort of negligence it has struck me that some tools which the courts use in deciding negligence cases […]
Yonathan Arbel, ‘The Readability of Contracts: Big Data Analysis’
ABSTRACT The Plain Language Movement waged a silent revolution in the last generation, passing nearly 800 laws nationwide with little public debate. The movement asserted that it could scientifically show that there is a widespread readability crisis in legal documents, particularly contracts, that are unreadable to most adults. This article presents the largest empirical analysis […]
Sergio Alberto Gramitto Ricci, ‘The Vitruvian Shareholder’
ABSTRACT The proportions of Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man allow the human figure to fit a circle and a square, which in Renaissance iconography represent respectively the secular and divine dimensions. Good canons allow for a proportionate and simultaneous coexistence of the two natures of humankind. Human shareholders have two natures, too: one as investors and one […]
Timothy Wyatt, ‘Pandemics and Contractual Issues’
ABSTRACT Outbreaks of disease, such as the coronavirus disease 2019 (‘COVID 19’) pandemic, have the potential to significantly impact the performance of all types of contract work. Where such occurrences are rare and unexpected, it is unlikely that the contracting parties factored the occurrence into contract performance terms such as price and schedule, notwithstanding the […]
Imre Szalai, ‘Stranger Disputes: When Artificial Intelligence Turns Arbitration Upside Down’
ABSTRACT Arbitration agreements are everywhere in the United States. These agreements already block access to courts in a troubling manner, and pursuant to these agreements, parties must have their disputes resolved before a private, human arbitrator with broad, virtually unreviewable powers. However, with the growth of AI, companies could easily redraft their contracts to require […]
Dadush, Schönfelder and Streibelt, ‘What the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive Says About Contract’
ABSTRACT This policy brief was prepared by the Responsible Contracting Project to analyze the content of the newly adopted EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) with respect to commercial contracts. On July 5, 2024, the CSDDD was published in the Official Journal of the European Union. It will enter into force on July 25, […]
Adam Davidson, ‘Guido Calabresi’s “Other Justice Reasons”’
ABSTRACT This essay argues that building community may be one of the ‘other justice reasons’ identified by Guido Calabresi and Douglas Melamed in their seminal article, ‘Property Rules, Liability Rules, and Inalienability: One View of the Cathedral’. Using Judge Calabresi’s like and transformative justice as examples, it suggests that as an ‘other justice reason’, building […]